Global food production has increased steadily and yet there are still countries with malnourished populations. Many of these countries rely on agriculture, and have not seen an increase in overall food production in spite of global increases. Some of these countries cannot grow the various foods required to meet nutrition requirements due to human and environmental forces.
With advancements in technology, people live longer, birth rates are higher, and population increases place additional stress on resources. As the population continues to increase, so will the demand for food, fiber, and agriculture based renewable energy sources. With an increased population comes the requirement for additional housing and infrastructure. This increase decreases the amount of acreage available for effective crop production. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for agricultural crop products, while the available land to produce such products is limited. Other concerns include depletion of nutrients from the available soil, the effectiveness of current agricultural production methods, environmental impacts on plants, and loss of arable land resulting from increased global warming (which has yet to be adequately studied).
With these growing concerns, it is necessary for society to continually develop advancements in sustainably increasing production from limited arable resources. It is also evident that cost effective methods for increased agricultural production and crop yield must undergo continued development.
Attempts to address some of these problems have included methods such as breeding and selecting more productive plant varieties; improved crop management; advances in technology; use of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides; and changes in irrigation techniques. These methods have been useful in some countries, but have had limited impact on developing nations where cultural practices and farm management are not advanced and where the cost of fertilizer or lack of irrigation practices have produced less than satisfactory crop yields. Even in countries with advanced farm management techniques, such as the United States, continual advances in productivity are necessary, and such necessity may not be satisfied by known compositions and methods.
Genetic engineering techniques are being employed to produce plants that are tolerant or resistant to environmental stresses and pathogen and pest pressure (abiotic and biotic stresses, respectively). Genetic engineering of plants for crop production often involves identification and insertion of foreign genes. The practice is time consuming, costly and often limiting with regards to numbers of genes that can be inserted or activated in a genetically engineered plant.
Insufficient time and attention has been devoted to the control of stress in biological processes at the cellular level. Stress is relevant to crop productivity and quality. Plants have the biological potential to deal with environmental stress in a fashion which may be exploited for the sustainable benefit of humankind. Compositions and methods for using such compositions to modify gene expression in plants to improve crop yields under various environmental stresses are needed.